Cox Business Outside Sales - Account Executive Cox Communications Employee Review

Cox Business Outside Sales is ALWAYS HIRING! Yet, they never stop to wonder why the people they hire do not succeed and leave in less than a year. The department is content to hire and then hire some more. In a group of 20 sales representatives, only 3 representatives consistently meet and exceed quota. The rest of field struggles to get by and the morale is very low. It takes a long time to be fired due to quota. Most people just quit because of the long hours, high stress and zero support. Every couple months, at least one employee goes on "medical leave." That is not a good sign and the management has yet to realize that expectations of the job are too high and that almost every aspect of this job is harder than it has to be. So much burden is placed on the sales representative and new tasks and responsibilities continue to be added. You are expected to be a customer service, technical support, order entry and sales all at the same time. You also need to prospect in the field for new business for 20 hours or more a week. When you are prospecting in the field, you are completely on your own with no administrative support. Cox Business does not provide you with the technology or customer information that you need to efficiently cold call. A lot of emphasis is placed on cold calling when management knows that the most successful sales representatives do little to no prospecting, because they live off vendor leads and their personal network. You would think the successful sales representatives have an easier time or shorter hours, but that is definitely not the case. They spend 40-50 hours in the office each week just submitting their orders and also work from home on nights and weekends. For some reason, Cox Business thinks there are more hours in the day than there actually are. The hardest working new sales representatives end up working 60 hours a week and still don't make quota. Once people realize this, they actively start looking for other employment, and then there is yet another job opening at Cox Business. The back-end process for sales is time-consuming and difficult to learn. I have never worked at a company that did not compile a handbook for its employees - everything is learned by word of mouth and occasional emails that get sent out explaining a new process. And there are ALWAYS new processes. This company has yet to figure out how to process orders and install them competently in a timely manner. You cannot just sell something and trust that the sales support team to handle it. If you work here, you will constantly be dragged back into an account that you have already sold even though you are expected to always be prospecting for new sales. The management team realizes this but does not care. Every change that has been made is only to require a sales representative to do more work on their accounts instead of having the sales support team take on new tasks. Cox Business is not a sales-oriented company and it probably never will be. This is not a good company to work at for sales.